So when does the chit-chat start? Right now!

a reply to: desert

New sherry glasses? You mean - no more paper cups?

:-)

Gotta admit - ok for sherry first and sherry second - switching back to paper after that

Keep em coming barkeep...

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Yes, people actually have been paying their tabs, so I invested in some new barware. Good idea about paper cups. I will also serve the sherry in paper cups around the pool.


Well, I will ask Jeeves if he can take over next week. Of all years, but I had prior commitments to be AFTV, AFK, and AWFB. Yes, away from television, away from keyboard, and away from bar. Y'all hold down the fort for me around ATS. I expect to return and read the excellent posts from all of you during the Democratic convention week. I will read the lousy ones, too hahaha

I miss you guys already

a reply to: desert

Happy Trails Desert

:-)

We'll all still be here bitching and moaning same as usual when you get back

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

OMG I was scared to open the door here today! I heard all this moaning, and I thought that the place became haunted while I was away! Then I put my ear to the door and could hear the usual bitching, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Good to see you all!

My trip was not exactly as I had thought it would be, but it was excellent anyway. We ended up in Northern Ca, the Emerald Empire. We went through the Bay Area, which now seems to extend all the way to Hwy 99 to the east and Santa Rosa to the north, at least traffic-wise. It is still a beautiful, magical bay, but I find the rat race overwhelming. Of course, I suppose that can be said of any urban tourist area in Summer. olaru, we ended up driving by Hayward; I'll bet I would love to read your memoirs from that time in your Life.

Here's a case of sherry just for Spira, her reward for hosting the D convention thread. Well, done!

Now, I need to go out and buy the ingredients for a special LN drink for the Olympics, "Brazil 2016". Ginger rootbeer, Cachaca rum, and pieces of garbage to float on top (small pieces of lemon and lime peel and mango and jicama, broken wooden skewer, and pieces of Tootsie Roll).

originally posted by: desert
a reply to: Spiramirabilis

OMG I was scared to open the door here today! I heard all this moaning, and I thought that the place became haunted while I was away! Then I put my ear to the door and could hear the usual bitching, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Good to see you all!

My trip was not exactly as I had thought it would be, but it was excellent anyway. We ended up in Northern Ca, the Emerald Empire. We went through the Bay Area, which now seems to extend all the way to Hwy 99 to the east and Santa Rosa to the north, at least traffic-wise. It is still a beautiful, magical bay, but I find the rat race overwhelming. Of course, I suppose that can be said of any urban tourist area in Summer. olaru, we ended up driving by Hayward; I'll bet I would love to read your memoirs from that time in your Life.

Here's a case of sherry just for Spira, her reward for hosting the D convention thread. Well, done!

Now, I need to go out and buy the ingredients for a special LN drink for the Olympics, "Brazil 2016". Ginger rootbeer, Cachaca rum, and pieces of garbage to float on top (small pieces of lemon and lime peel and mango and jicama, broken wooden skewer, and pieces of Tootsie Roll).

Contra Costa county was paradise when I lived there from what I can remember.....

a reply to: desert

Welcome back! The noise should die down soon. My bitching and moaning days are (almost) over. I'm on sabbatical. Nothing but sweetness and light - haikus and ironic happiness

It is still a beautiful, magical bay, but I find the rat race overwhelming. Of course, I suppose that can be said of any urban tourist area in Summer.

It is overwhelming isn't it? We're everywhere now. I remember the first time I saw Santa Fe. That's so over. It's still beautiful though. In a shiny kind of way

Here's a case of sherry just for Spira, her reward for hosting the D convention thread. Well, done!

Thank you desert. But, you know - it wasn't much harder than hosting a virus :-)

It was a pretty funny thread. Or, at least - I'm going with funny

I'm pretty excited about the Olympics - will be a nice diversion. Your latest drink sounds nice - if I don't think about it too much first :-)

Night all

I've had my first cup of coffee, there are clouds and cooler temps, I read Spira's post and laughed reading all that great sense of humor, so I'm having a good morning.

olaru, paradise is getting harder and harder to find nowadays. Or, really, is it just that one's sense of paradise is a Golden Place, like a Golden Age once lived through and declared to be the best? Will a younger generation see Contra Costa County as their paradise, even though I see it and the entire Bay Area having been spoiled by too many more cars and people? (There are 50% more people in the Bay Area and CCC has just about doubled in population since the years we remember.) "Paradise is dead, long live Paradise"?

Santa Fe? No, not Santa Fe, too, Spira! I've driven by it a few times, heading eastward across the country, meaning to come back and finally visit. We still might, by train someday. Well, I'll bet when I do, I shall find a paradise, perhaps not as grand as once before, but nonetheless still a paradise to me.

I think what struck me in my recent travels was the transformation of some small towns from a Main Street with a few wooden buildings to a highway through town with modern, lighted businesses with parking lots just down the street from those older buildings. Too much light and bustle for me.

The town I live in still has that small town feeling, even though it, too, has grown much in population. We were never of a demographic to ever have an enclosed mall built, so we escaped having a white elephant sitting in our midst now. Well, I'm going to pour me another cup of coffee. If a younger member comes in here, will you guys yell out "Get off her barstool!" for me? Thanks.

a reply to: desert

I forgot where I was desert - and forgot to get back to this too I realize now :-)

Santa Fe is gorgeous - and you'll love it. It's just not the dusty little southwestern town I fell in love with - nothing but cottonwoods, adobes, rabbit brush and sage...

It still has all that - only now with wine bars, timeshares and Neiman Marcus

I once had an extremely vivid dream that I was sitting in an old cafe in Santa Fe shooting the breeze with Joni Mitchel...

She told me to follow my bliss. Or some such nonsense :-)



Ciao compadres - see you in the fall

Hi, gang! I think I just caught a glimpse of Spira taking advantage of lovely Fall weather to stroll among our show of Fall foliage. I should send Jeeves out with a glass of sherry.

olaru, can you accompany me as I sing. .... oh, dear, no, not with your bass.... I meant can you come over here and spot me on stage in case I fall off?.... ahemmmm....

Hello Spira, ......well, hello, Spira
It's so nice to have you back where you belong
You're lookin' swell, Spira.......I can tell, Spira
You're still glowin'...you're still crowin'...you're still goin' strong
I feel that room swayin'......while the band's playin'
One of your old favourite songs from way back when
So..... take her wrap, fellas.......find her an empty lap, fellas
Spira'll never go away again

a reply to: desert

D. I'll be there for you anytime. I can't promise the shape I'll be in though. Me and the Queen of Pain have started on the medicine a little early in celebration of watching the GOP pretzel dance. That tune brought a tear to my eyes.
Spira indeed! Love you all!

You know - you two actually just made me well up

I'm serious

It feels pretty nice in here

Love to you both

x

And now I'm verklempt! I haven't seen us all this verklempt since we all sang "Danny Boy" around the bar last St. Paddy's Day. Come here, you guys, group hug, group hug.

Hey kids :-)

No sherry for me thanks desert - it's time for something a little harder

I'm in the mood to get blind drunk and set something on fire - so best we sit out on the veranda and you hide all the matches

Let's have some music, good conversation, good food - then let's get this party started for real. 4 years til sunrise...and we're burning daylight in the dark now









But, mostly :-)



I feel better already. Got any marshmallows desert?

Jesus f++++** Christ.....am I dreaming?

a reply to: olaru12

Nope

Wish you were dear friend

Missing Nixon yet?

originally posted by: Spiramirabilis
a reply to: olaru12

Nope

Wish you were dear friend

Missing Nixon yet?

Yes, I'm beginning to see some sort of surrealistic Biblical Book of Revelations unfolding like those old Purple mico dots used to show me. Fascinating and horrifying all balled up into blackness grey horror meanies. WTF?

Veranda it is! Let's all move out there now!

Ok....Olaru, here's a Nasty Woman for you ..... uh, this drink, not that skank back at the bar....Spira, a Bad Hombre for you, and pitcher of Bad Hombres, too. Excuse me, I see a wild look in Spira's eyes, so I will d-i-s-c-r-e-e-t-l-y remove all the candles around here.... there..... Jeeves, is our fire insurance paid up?

olaru, since I have decorated my condo upstairs living area with a French Chateau look, I have decided to move to the French countryside. I will no longer listen or watch American news. I will live in my condo as an ex-pat in France, but without needing to learn French or relearn money. Oui!

Wow, that's some good music playing! ..... oh, wow! .... hey, guys, that one song inspires me!!! Please, could I get both of you to accompany me on guitar?.... my singing is poor, and my French is worse, so I will translate...ready?

The partisans' song....

Mate, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains?
Mate, do you hear the muffled clamour of enchained countries?
Hey, partisans, workers and peasants this is the signal
tonight the enemy will know the price of blood and tears...

Join the sabotage, get off the hills, comrades!
Take the rifles, the machine gun, the grenades out of the straws.
Hey, killers, with a bullet or by knife, kill swiftly!
Hey, saboteur, take care of your charge: dynamite...

It's us smashing the prison bars for our brothers,
The hatred on our backs and the hunger that drives us, the misery.
There are countries where people are dreaming deep in their beds,
here, we, you see, we're marching on and we're getting killed, we're getting whacked...
Yes, we're getting whacked...

Here everyone knows what he wants, what he does when it takes place,
Mate, if you go down, a mate out of the shadows takes your place.
Tomorrow black blood will be drying under the sun on the roads,
sing, colleagues, freedom is listening to us in the night...

Sing...
Come on, sing...
Sing, colleagues!

Jeeves, a beer, S'il vous plaît. I need something to cry in....

Let's toast to The Resistance!!

Je vous aime!!!

Happy Thanksgiving you guys

Much to be thankful for



Friends - for one thing

Hope your day is wonderful - and our year gets better

:-)

Keeping it simple - keeping it real...

And same to you, Spira! Maybe that's the key.... keep it simple, keep it real.

I love Joni Mitchell, been singing her for years.

Hey, good news everybody! Trumpa chose me to be United States Secretary of Agriculture! You see, in my lifetime I have raised a steer and a hog for meat, had a backyard vegetable garden, and have had a few citrus trees. Why, I've nowhere near met any of the barest of qualifications! Yay!

Ok, now here are your free buffet tickets for the LN Thanksgiving dinner. They're also good for all the leftovers you can eat starting tomorrow, while they last. And remember Turkey Taco Night next week.

Merry Thanksgiving! Chica's